“You need to make a medallion,” he replies. “But your medallion must be forged from metal that is given, not taken. We are here to give you what is needed.”
With that, he lifts his right paw and extends a single talon.
It only makes me tense. Erik gives a warning growl beside me, his claws extending fully, but Graviter continues slowly.
He presses his extended talon to the scales that rest across the top of his other paw, leveraging the talon beneath one of his scales.
He grimaces but doesn’t make a sound as he pulls a single scale off the top of his paw.
It’s one of his smallest scales, but it’s still the size of my palm.
“For when you need fury,” he says.
I consider him warily, but before I can question him, Torva Viridia steps up. She is small compared to Graviter, her scales alternating green and blue. While Graviter is a picture of fire and fury, she radiates only with intense calm.
One of her talons extends and within seconds, she too leverages a scale off the top of her paw, this one emerald.
“For peace,” she says.
Vargo Vanem is already attacking his own paw, quickly succeeding in removing a single, crimson-red scale. “For wisdom.”
Each of the dragons in the background scratches at their left paw, leveraging up a scale and speaking, one by one.
Patience. Justice. Honor. Compassion. Discipline. Inspiration.
And finally…
“Water,” the last dragon declares. She has a distinctly feminine voice and her cerulean-blue scales catch the moonlight even more brightly than Graviter’s.
When the other dragons turn to stare at her, their eyebrows raised, she stares right back at them. “What? All that discipline and justice. She’s going to get thirsty.”
She winks at me across the distance. “I’m Lily Verago. Water dragon. If there’s a fire, I’m the one you need.”
When Graviter continues to glare at her, she rolls her eyes. “Okay, fine.Resilience.” She smiles. “Like water that keeps on flowing.”
Nearer to me, Torva gives a nod of approval, a smile flickering around her mouth, and it’s clear to me that she and Lily are friends.
Then Torva takes a deep breath, blowing gently across the air.
The loose scales lift up off the dragons’ paws, caught in the stream of her breath, and waft like flower petals toward me.
Before they would reach me, they veer to my left, cascading down onto the surface of the rock that sits at the edge of the cliff.
I don’t know how to point out the flaw of their gifts without sounding ungrateful. “They aren’t metal,” I whisper.
“You don’t need metal,” Graviter calmly replies, as if he’d been prepared for my question. “It is the basic tenet of your power that you can moldanything. It’s time to test how far your power can go.”
“What of the fire I need?” Then my forehead creases. “Do I even need fire?”
“I don’t know,” Graviter replies. “Do you?”
I study the ten scales of different colors neatly piled on the top of the rock. Then I consider my hammer.
I close my eyes and imagine forging a medallion for the first time.
Within my mind, I can hear myself instructing Thaden that day in the human forge.
My own voice is so clear in my memory.
